The X Factor- the style stakes are high...

They’re going to make you famous. To prove it, they’ll dress you up as a caricature of yourself, surround you with scantily clad backing dancers and announce your name in a comically booming voice. On the nations favourite talent show, contestants are poked and prodded, groomed and glossed until their mentors decide they’re larger than life enough to stand up to the spotlights. Then it’s time to face the music…but how many of the contestants are ready?

One of the first casualties of the season was a Miss Amelia Lily- only sixteen, but rocking the crowds in short, tight leather and her blonde-turned-bubblegum hair. Sent home after the first live show, Amelia must return to her pre-X Factor life, with little more than fading pink locks and slight Miami sunburn.

Gary’s new favourite toy, Frankie Cocozza, has had no expense spared (except a haircut. And a wash.) in marketing him to the country’s teenage girls, not that he needs any help. As Mr Barlow relives his youth through the tattooed charmer, Frankie knows fame will bring him even more attention from the ladies. With over 60 conquests under his belt no-one could call him shy, but is he prepared for the scrutiny and criticism that comes alongside showbiz? Upon recently returning to his hometown Brighton, Frankie was greeted by crowds screaming “Everybody hates you”. Beneath his trademark tousled mop, his confidence must be shaken.

Finally, the shyest member of the finalists, Janet Devlin. She might have what it takes to succeed vocally, but with all the pressure and paparazzi, what’s to stop the Irish wallflower from drowning in the floodlights?



They've got their serious faces on and there's fire in the background- so you know they mean business.

But it’s not all doom, gloom and rehab predictions- this year’s new judges are a welcome change. Gary may be a little smug like Simon, but seems sincerely interested in his group of competitors. Seeing dollar signs light up Mr Cowell’s eyes when he spotted a potentially lucrative act confirmed his reputation as cold and calculating. Kelly Rowland has replaced Cheryl as the women of Britain’s dream best friend, and it’s easy to imagine Tulisa making a night out one to remember- getting the drinks in, dancing on tables, and perhaps getting a bit cheeky with the bouncers. Louis remains, seemingly bumbling but undeniably successful, to keep light-hearted comedy in the competition.

Like many career choices, becoming a pop star requires hard work, commitment and determination. However, not so many jobs include sexing yourself up into a media-savvy brand, and potentially completely transforming yourself and the way you look. But then how many accountants get to have thousands of fans screaming their name? It’s not without its glamour, but the fame game is a dangerous one, and I’m not sure all of the contestants are ready to play.



It'll take more than a cuppa to prepare Janet for the pressure to come...

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All photos sourced from Google Images. This was published today in my university newspaper, and I posted it up here for those of you not around to pick one up :)

Icing on the cake

How are the latest LV collection and cupcakes linked? Read on to find out... 

Doing filing while the excitable world outside my window is off to do shots is somewhat deflating. All work and no play makes this club-lover just a little bit mardy. But with library books and reading lists building a barrier impossible to break without extensive guilt and awkward seminar silences, I'm going to have to embrace the sensible side of fun. Let's get back to basics, and into the kitchen cupboard. Although, much as I love getting my bake on, a cookbooks place is more 11.30am, not 11.30pm. I should be squabbling with a taxi driver over the fare to Broad Street in a little dress and big heels round about now, but if anything can solve my growing-up predicament, and take me back to the land before deadlines, it's cupcakes.

Little-girly, pastel, fairy princess tea-party cupcakes.

This is what I came up with.

Marshmallow Vanilla Cupcakes- Hummingbird Bakery cookbook

Made for the birthday party of a glamorous housemate, I hope she enjoyed nibbling them in the rented hot tub as much as I enjoyed baking them...

Just in case the oven was too hot...

The party was Hawaiian themed, so I felt it was only fair that the cupcakes got into the holiday mood with some teeny tiny beach parasols...can't have the pudding feeling left out now, can we.

My sweet-tooth tendencies didn't stop at the obvious. Oh yes, I kept on tracking the sugar trail until I was sure I had my fix, or who knows what could happen; found by a concerned friend, leaning listlessly against any speaker with a vague baseline, or unconsciously buying out every last elasticated thread of body-con on Asos- I had to be sure I had found a true alternative to the dancefloor I so craved. So you can imagine my hand-clapping delight when I found Mr Marc over at Louis Vuitton had just the thing to keep me at a safe distance from my killer heels...

Louis Vuitton Spring 2012 Collection 

Marc Jacobs has brought a happily-ever-after to fashion that looks good enough to eat...the colours, the feathery-light textures- even the odd tiara- make this crucial for dissertation motivation. Regressing back to my five-year-old self's love of the carousel pony to reign myself in from the Sambuca- why didn't I think of this before?

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On the rocks

"I roamed the countryside searching for answers to things I did not understand"  ~Leonardo da Vinci

     I don't mind admitting it- times have changed. These days I like my leisure served up steaming on a plate or three (don't be shy with the mayo), followed by the swift gestation of a food baby. Either that, or complete with reciept, snug inside some crisp carrier that I can swing merrily down the high street.
I've always been partial to emptying my purse to fill my wardrobe and my stomach- trading money for treats never stops looking like a good deal. But as I glance back at the past few years unfurled behind me, I wonder- how can it be that I've grown, when I seem to have lost my roots?

     Those roots that scuffed my knees and boots, pinked my cheeks with gusts, rays and showers, shot my skin with sea salt and grass stains, drenched me, bruised me, froze me, tired me, tested me... but never anything less than transfixed me. The Great Outdoors- it always has me paddling, trekking and climbing back for more. Or at least it did...

     Cue the Donkey- to pull me out of bed, into my walking boots and back onto the straight and narrow of meandering open fields. Luckily for me, Donkey generally makes a living out of keeping it rural, and can usually be found hoofing up rockfaces rather than cantering down town. So, waking up to find a nearby cove stroll, my trusty yellow Micra and party-food posing as picnic, all swirling around in the big empty sun-brushed Saturday in front of us, we knew what to do. It went a little something like this:

Waterfalls: washing worries and essay tension away since...well, long before essays existed.

It's probably wrong that this makes me want a waterfall-chilled Diet Coke...

Unadulterated Vitamin D

The blue beyond.

Nice boots them shoes...

 Jigsaw for giants.

Picnic spot... spotted.

Riverside rock basking... I'll get up in five minutes...

...or maybe in ten...

Malham Cove: sunbathers-eye-view

Nature keeps things trendy with a spot of colour-blocking

"Every wall is a door" ~Ralph Waldo (...or a stile...)

Grass criss crossed

In Malham we (National) Trust

And it's home time...

...but not for the last time. Roaming the green stuff with Donkey has planted my feet back on the ground, and while they may soon find themselves back to toppling in vodka-stung stilettos, or patiently padding round sale rails, they've had a walk to remember. Because while times might have changed, mud on my hands and grass between my toes has always made me happy. I'd just forgotten how much.

"I was 'ere...are you?" - observations on desk graffiti

A view on the walk home from uni...what else are you walking away from?

Dashed and weathered by the tides of pens, pages, coats and elbows, their corners buffed into curved polish, their grains ground up with inks and dents of procrastination past.

The raring expectancies of lives beginning lies in these boards- illustrations of the subconscious, thoughts left too long un-tethered in those fragmented pauses between interest and understanding. Like the murk of an evening skyline, the harder you squint, the more biro constellations rise up through the blotted layers. Some wet black with fresh passion or distraction. Some softer- etches waning and wearing away; void and forgotten like the emotion, long since spent, that carved it there.

There are lessons learnt here, offered to us to make our own- it’s odd, both how often the word ‘time’ pops up, and how much there is etched out in English. A lolling scrawl simply suggests, “Take the Time”, another preaches, “time is something in your hands”, while here is scratched the sullen mumble, “kill the time that’s killing you”. There is an excitable, and as far as I can make out from the Italian, fairly derogatory comment about Gwen Stefani, and a few regulation doodles of penises. Some sketches are cruel, some are merry, some loving, some pondering, some make no sense at all- and why should they?



Except...I’m drawn (no pun intended) to a certain few patches of bleached scribbles- despite their age, and their bolder gel-pen successors, I find myself dwelling on them. Wondering if they hold on, in dull defiance, because they hold true, even now, though their authors long since left these pews behind. Their tattered messages are distant, but held here in purgatory, with dogged insistence. Do they stay loyal, somehow, to a dream never realised, a passion never chased, a love left untold? What do they say that their owner could not?



What have you written? Or, more importantly, do your thoughts live on, spectre-like on some desk gone by- shady reminders of a bottled desire? And don’t you think it’s time you let those laboured lines fade away....



Slightly less insightful graffiti, on the Literature Faculty wall

 (if you're bored, leave me a comment below. because...well, I like them :) )



Harrow, Goodbye

"How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard."
— A.A. Milne

Blustered and mingling whorls of heeled up, tanned up, tanked up shadows ebb and flow. Road to road, house to taxi, they lace the wet air with the evenings jokes, amplified by lambrini. Looking out from my attic window, I'm about to go out and be one of them, all sparkles and picture-posing and quid-each-to-Broad-Street-yeah?. I can't wait. But, after tonight, I'll have to wait. The year abroad is so near now I can smell the gelato on its breath; the thrill of change so close, its almost tangible. Glancing back at my old, and someone else's new, room, I remember how it's quietly held it's own this past year.

The blue tack blemishes, pin pockmarks: evidence that it, fleetingly, held up posters, treasured photos, cards, decorations- flimsy projections of a personality that worked, rested, played and shortly stayed in these four walls. Housemates joined me here for the lows and the highs:

There's the high-flying Landan Gal, with a faff here and a Gallo there, she'll make the headlines (literally).
Our forever-birthday Performer Princess is the fun and glamorous star of the show, and the boss of it, naturally.
The Fresher's Choice and all-round bloke's bloke (but don't forget, Cameron's HIS main man) is always there to supply logic, reason and advice, fuelled by Coco Shreddies and Pot Noodle (that is unless it's Forrest'O'Clock).
There's the Main Mod, whose media technology, music knowledge, love of Smiley Faces and upholding of personal style remain unsurpassed.
And who could forget Chef Celtic: he's your man for football, films, cooking up hilarious disaster out on the town, and always for a hug and a glass of Papa Murdie's finest.
Last but not least, honorary member Top Tough Cookie, which I now know is a soft cookie really: together we should make bipolar opposing mayhem, but instead, I'm glad to know that her brusque, stylish self is always on the end of that award-winning phone.

So I turn and teeter downstairs to join them all for a drink and a party, altogether, once more with feeling. See you soon 53, you'll be missed.

xxx

Sweet Tooths Inc.

It was bound to happen. In the kitchen, as with everywhere else, what goes up must come down. That doesn't just apply to soufflés. The vanilla-gilded aura that has been beaming out from the cupcake for some time now has, inevitably, begun to flicker.
When once our be-sprinkled friends could do no wrong, there are now those who mock, who jeer their admittedly absurd shoot to fame. Food blogger Sophie Jordan sneeringly dismisses them as, “the most infantile baked goods imaginable”. Even those on the opposite side of the foodie fence cant help but wonder how these souped-up little sponges found themselves, bewildered and Bambi-eyed, in centre stage. Paper cased and showcased, iced to the nines- like daughters playing gaudy dress-up in mummy’s jewellery and make-up.
Entire shops are devoted to these twee-ly glitzy calorie bombs, droves of yummy mummies, lunch-breaking nine-to-fivers, hard workers, shirkers, assistants, maids and managers can all be found frothing at the counters, as if they housed some hybrid of hyper-cute puppies, bred for ultra-adorability, crossed with syrup-dipped Chippendales.

Some cakes are verging on snacks in drag, in sickly yellows, pinks and blues, on the brink of diabetic, glitter-spewing, bright-fright meltdown.
So what’s the fuss? They’re hardly the gastronomic grail. We all see them for what they are, surely? They’re what almost every last one of us used to avidly bodge together as children, whether we were spilling the self-raising onto cracked lino kitchen surface, lurid Ikea wipe-down mats, or lacquered stretches of pine worktop, while the au-pair wiped up frantically as you went.

The only difference is, now, fully grown strangers process them in factory sterility, and demand a fiver a pop for the privilege. These little sugar-nests- they’re our own childhoods gone cooperate, siphoned straight from our fond memories and regurgitated for us in pristine Cath Kidson uniformity. And up till now, we couldn’t snaffle the things down fast enough. And I don’t think, despite the growing bake-hating, doggedly Scrooge-esque blogs such as “cupcakesareshit.tumblr.com” (yes, really), that we’re going to stop any time soon. Even if we do admit the whole phenomenon is a bit daft, actually, and any self-respecting primate, given half a dozen ingredients, bowl, spoon and oven, could whip up a batch blindfold, I’ve got a hunch that we’ll carry on investing in this sweet stuff for a little while yet.

The truth is, they’re not deemed glutinous, but just one packs more punch than necking the sugar bowl. They’re marketed as flirty and feminine, but I challenge you to find a butcher onslaught of carbs that we can chicly, smirkingly, tuck into at our desks. They float like a butterfly cake, and sting like a syringe of glucose shot straight into the veins. They’re what we craved for every time we opened our lunch boxes, and found an apple there instead.

We’re grown-up’s now, right? So we’ll have our sickly sweet, party-bag playground treat anytime we like, thanks very much.